


the darkness glows, i'm drowning

by allumerlesoir



Category: Elisabeth - Levay/Kunze
Genre: Blood, Gen, M/M, Scars, Self-Harm, not exactly historically accurate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-02
Updated: 2014-01-02
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:27:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,048
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116062
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allumerlesoir/pseuds/allumerlesoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rudolf is alive as his life’s blood runs down his arm and onto the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the darkness glows, i'm drowning

**Author's Note:**

> Title from "Der Tod, Das Ist" by Heinrich Heine
> 
> I am alive and writing again, though this is in a different fandom than my previous works. I have several plot bunnies, so stay tuned for more stories based on this musical. 
> 
> This story includes an act of self-harm and discussion of suicide and death. If any of these trigger you in any way, please do not read this story.

It is nighttime, and the wind howls through the trees outside Crown Prince Rudolf’s window. He is sixteen years old, yet the sound of the wind screaming still frightens him, just as it did when he was ten years younger. Strange, how fears stick to you after all this time.

He is sitting in the moonlight streaming in from his window, his legs crossed and head bowed. In his hand, he clasps a razor blade that reflects that light up into his eyes and startles him. The light is cold at night.

Earlier today, his tutor had handed him this blade and told him to shave off the budding mustache and sideburns that had begun to grow. He told Rudolf that the more he shaved it, the thicker it would grow back, and then perhaps he would look like a true Habsburg prince.

So this afternoon found Rudolf leaning into the mirror in his bathroom, running the sharp blade across his cheeks and the space above his upper lip. He cut himself accidentally twice with the blade, but he discovered quickly that cold water upon the lacerations helped lessen the pain. He went down to dinner with his cheeks stinging, but at least the scratches no longer burned. No one at the table commented upon the red marks, but his mother’s eyes, for what felt like the first time in forever, held Rudolf in their sight for the entire meal.

After the dishes were cleared and Rudolf had been dismissed from the table, he returned to his bedroom, and this is where he is sitting now, the moonlight casting his shadow on the floor.

He turns the blade over in his hands, watching the light reflect off of it. He has never had much of an affinity for the moonlight, and he still does not now. But he needs the light to see, so he sits in front of the open window, the breeze ruffling his hair and dressing gown.

As much as the cuts on his cheeks pained him, there was something about that pain that made him feel alive. For so long, Rudolf had felt like he was walking in a dream – his feet barely seemed to touch the floor. But when the blade had pierced his skin, he felt here, he felt whole, and that scares him.

But that also makes him want to try it again.

Rudolf brings the blade up to his eyes, turning it from side to side and watching the patterns of light on the dark walls of his bedroom. The blade is shining silver, and he lusts for the freedom of the pain that it had brought him this afternoon.

Slowly, he brings it to rest against the inside of his arm. The contrast of the silver of the blade and the pale skin of his arm sends a shiver up his spine, and yet, it thrills him as well. He leans forward, pressing the blade tentatively into his skin, and he is shocked when he feels blood well up around the blade, red blood marring the silver. 

There is not much blood yet, but he feels it beneath his skin, pushing up to the cut across the inside of his forearm. And the pain…it stings and it thrills and it feels so good. Rudolf is alive, alive, alive, as his life’s blood runs down his arm and onto the floor.

He sinks back so that he is no longer sitting, but rather laying, on the floor. He leans his head back, expecting to feel the hard wood against his head, but instead finds something far softer. The softer thing shifts, accommodating his head more comfortably, and he wonders who put a cushion on the floor, because he certainly did not. 

And suddenly he feels the soft thing tremble, as if taking in a breath, and it speaks.

“You know, there are easier ways to call me, my dear prince,” the soft thing says, and Rudolf knows that this is not a pillow beneath his head. This is his friend, and Rudolf’s head is pillowed against his stomach. He does not even have to turn to look to see him, to know him. He has that blond hair and pale skin, those penetrating blue eyes; his features were seared into his mind from the first time that they met, ten long years ago.

The blade is still resting in Rudolf’s hands, and when his friend reaches for it, a pale, long-fingered hand stretching into his vision, he allows him to take it. He watches through fluttering eyelids as his friend examines the blade.

Rudolf shudders, shivering, and the blade clatters to the floor. His friend leans over him, and Rudolf turns so that he can look straight up at his face.

“You…you seem…” Rudolf gasps out, his head suddenly feeling far too light as it rests on his friend’s stomach. “…You are…very far…”

His friend sighs, his stomach flexing beneath Rudolf’s head, and he feels a cold hand against his cheek. The cold should not help, and it does not, but it is comforting to feel a hand on his cheek, even when he knows who his friend is and why he has come.

Rudolf has lost an awful lot of blood.

His friend’s hand pushes his head up and close to his friend’s face, and suddenly his friend’s eyes lock with his, and he sees the world in their depths. Those eyes have always frightened him, with their deep blue color and widened pupils. But now, they seem comforting, holding him in their gaze, and this is nothing like how his mother looked at him at dinner. That was with interest; this is with care.

“I am right here,” his friend murmurs, and Rudolf cannot feel his breath against his lips, and that scares him more than he would like to admit. He has never forgotten who his friend is, but he has often simply misplaced the fact that his friend is not alive.

And if he keeps losing blood, soon Rudolf will not be alive either.

“Would you like to come with me?” his friend asks, and his voice seems too far away even with his cold hand against Rudolf’s cheek. “You did call for me, after all. Surely you did not just want to talk?”

Rudolf shifts so that his head is buried in the crook of his friend’s neck, and it is strangely comforting to sit here, his forehead resting against his friend’s too-cold skin. He feels one of his friend’s hands come up to brush against his hair, the fingers running through his brown locks, massaging into his scalp.

“No,” his friend says, “No, I do not think I shall take you with me tonight. You still have time, my dear Rudolf. To take you now would be cruel, even for me.”

At that, Rudolf discovers that he can see again. His mind is no longer clouded over and everything is clear once more. He moves in his friend’s arms so that their eyes meet again, and now Rudolf can discern every feature of his friend’s harsh face, that severe nose and those cool blue eyes. And Rudolf stretches up, desperately, because once eternity had been offered…he wanted it.

And his friend turns away, blond hair hitting Rudolf’s nose, and he sighs. He will never understand his friend, with his mercurial moods and aggressive restraint. His friend is made of oxymorons, and Rudolf cannot even begin to ponder what it must be like to live as his friend does. He supposes that his friend is lucky in that he is not even properly alive.

Suddenly, Rudolf is sitting against the floor again, the hardness of it almost shocking now that he can feel again. He reaches out for his friend, watching as he walks away. “Stay!” he implores, as he once did a decade ago.

His friend stops in his tracks and turns to look at him, a smile ghosting over his lips. “Do not worry, dear prince,” he says. “I shall return in a moment.” Rudolf watches him disappear into the shadows, an inkling of worry settling in his heart for what his friend will do next.

As if he had never left, his friend is at his side once more. In his hands are one of Rudolf’s towels, a fresh and clean dressing gown, and a bowl filled with water. He sets these items at Rudolf’s side and takes Rudolf’s hands in his.

“Do you trust me?” he asks Rudolf, and Rudolf wonders why he even has to ask. He has always trusted his friend, from the moment he met him. His friend has been the only one to never lie to him, to never hide anything from him. His friend has always answered his questions and consoled him when he needed comfort. Rudolf nods, relaxing his hands in his friend’s grip.

And then his friend’s hands are all over him, removing the bloody dressing gown from his body, and he shivers in the moonlight. His friend’s hands bring no warmth, but the clean dressing gown he slides over his shoulders helps a little.

“Good?” his friend asks, cupping Rudolf’s head in his hands. Rudolf nods, and then the hands are gone. He watches as his friend dips the towel into the water, soaking a corner of it. He reaches for Rudolf’s bloody arm, and Rudolf lets him take it in his too-cold hands and wash the wound with the water. The white towel quickly turns red with blood – with his blood – and he feels like he might faint again.

Just as he starts to fall backwards onto the floor, his friend’s hand is at his back, supporting him and gently easing him to the ground. Something soft cushions his head, and he realizes that it is his friend’s blue and black velvet jacket, because now, for the first time, he can see in full the black shirt that his friend wears beneath the jacket. It hugs his friend’s muscles and bones and something about that sight makes Rudolf shiver.

His friend takes his arm in his hands again and continues to wash the blood from his skin, softly humming to himself the whole time. It is an old tune, one that Rudolf barely remembers from his childhood, but it is comforting.

Seconds pass but they feel like hours, and then his friend has put his coat back on and Rudolf is curled up in his friend’s arms again, his teenaged lankiness fitting perfectly into his friend’s embrace.

“Do you understand?” his friend asks after some time. “Do you understand why I did not take you this evening?”

“No,” Rudolf answers honestly, because he had been laying there like a sacrificial offering, his blood spilling on to the floor, and he cannot fathom why his friend did not simply take him right there and then. He was defenseless and his friend was strong, and his blood was everywhere.

“I did not take you,” his friend replies, “because although you seemed to call for me to take you, I know that you have so much more to give. You will bring in the future, my dear Rudolf.”

Rudolf is not entirely sure what his friend means by all of that talk of the future, and it kind of scares him a little bit.

“How can I bring in a future, as you say, when I will not live to see it?” he asks. He remembers the way the blood felt leaving his body, and it was strangely addicting and maybe a little freeing.

His friend laughs quietly. “You will live as long as you need to,” he says. “I will ensure it. You will only die when it is necessary for you to die.”

As ominous as that sounds, it is also comforting, and Rudolf manages to fall asleep at last as his friend hums that same strange old tune.

Rudolf wakes the next morning to find himself curled in his bedclothes, and there is a distinct lack of his friend. He turns over in the bed, gathering the bedclothes closer to his chest. As he moves, he looks at his arm.

The blood is gone, but the wound remains.


End file.
